162 Document» a felony depriving those who engage 'n 'l u' intercourse with civilized peoples. With war aims conceived on these lines the free peoples ol ihť earth would feci this war to he a struggle for the right ol entry into a new and higher phase ol human existence. Short ol such aims, orol aims akin to them, this war would prove io be merely another episode in a series of attempts to decide whether men and peoples are worthy and capable of peace. b) (. ..) Decisive moments in human history - and this is such a moment -demand bold thinking and high aims. To the idea of federal union many mínds in many countries already assent. The practical difficulty i.s where and how to begin. If we wait until the end of the war we may fall into errors similar to those ih.it were destined io ruin much of the work done by the f ramers of the League ol Nations Covenant. Vře may try to form, with an elaborate written constitution, another League or federation ol sovereign States, each jealous ol its own sovereignty ... In this matter the rule cd thumb is the safest guide. We must work with the tools and the materials that lie ready to hand. The nearest and readiest ol these tools arc Great Britain. France and the rlritish Dominions. All stand on democratic foundations. France and Great Britain are now united, far more than allied, in this war. A "Supreme Council" directs their war effort. This union should be broadened and deepened until the principle of a Supreme Council - in which, it their peoples desire it. the British Dominions could take pa" ■ would be emhodied in a permanent institution. From it might evolve something in the nature of a federal Government for the British and French democracies - will one proviso of ultimately decisive importance. To membership of this federation ami to a share in its government, democratic countries now neutral could be admitted at the end oi the war, or earlier should attack upon them by the enemy or his helpers bring them into the war. No country without democratic institutions coi'ld be eligible. The proviso "of ultimately decisive importance" is that whatever federal institutions may he set up. or federal government that may he formed, should he responsible not to the Governments but directly to the peoples of the countries belonging to the federation. As the American writer, Mr. Clarence K. Streit, has urged unanswerably in his famous book. Union Nov, the main cause of the failure of the League of Nations was its character as a League ol sovereign States, not a Union of peoples, each of the States-members ol the League retaining its unlimited national sovereignty over affairs which by their very nature should have been common to all. Here Mr. Streit is on strong ground. One of the authors of the Constitution of the United States, Madison, learned from a study of confederacies, ancient and modern, that only ihosi* federations which were founded upon the assent of individual citizens, not on that of States, had endured or could endure. This is, indeed, the underlying principle of the United Suites ol America, just as it is ol the Swiss Confederation. Lach member of a workable lederal system must retain control ol us own internal affairs while surrendering to a lederal government, drawing authority from i he peoples not from the States or the federation, sovereignty ovei affairs that are common i<> all. |. . .) II. Other Conieibuiiom 1939-11 IV, 61. G. D. H. Cole: 'War Aims' November 1939 Excerpts from War Aim, London. New Sutttma* and Nation, November 1939, (56 pp.). pp 13-15. 41-43, -H 46. George Doughs Howard Cole (1889—I9Í9) tea* a biitorun, a university teacher, and one of the »ton influential intellectuals in the Labour Party. In l°}9 he ti>aS a /'•■How of Nuffield College, Oxford; and he was (chairman of the Fabian Society from J9}'> io 1946. He mas a prolific writer of hooks, pamphlets and press articles, and a man of individual views. The following exilata are taken from a substantialpamphlet on war aims, in which Cole developed the argument that it was not enough to toy thai Britam was fighting againtt HttUrism: ti was also necessary io say what she was fighting lor. In Cole's view, the then Prime Ministen of Britain and France, Chamberlain and lialadier, were incapable of taking an initiative on war aims, because all they really wanted was to restore the status ijuo jnie helium; ami so far the Labour Party had fatted >'u fill the vap with a programme of in own. 1 colonies under a federation; and (c) economic union. d {. ..) What is it that needs to be said? First and foremost, that we are fighting I litler, not as defenders of the old Europe, but as protagonists of the new. That «i «and, not lor restoring Poland or Czechoslovakia, or any other country, to the status and the condition that it has lost, but for creating a new Europe in »huh Poles, Czechs and Slovaks, equallv with Britons and Frenchmen and (.. rmans, will have freedom to manage their own internal affairs on condition of being ready to play their pans in a wider Lederal system. Secondly, that, if I uropcan peace and prosperity arc- io be secured, there must be, all over Europe, timeni.il change in the very conception of statehood, and a renunciation, in certain vital respects at least, of State Sovereignly and independence, with.a view i" i lie i re.it »m ol j peace as well assured as the peace between the English and the Smíš, m between the German. French and Italian Cantons ol Switzerland, or bei * ecu I lolland and the Scandinavian Slates. There must be in our war aims no Uveal re drawing the map ol Europe so as to partition it again into a number I completely independent sovereign States, each entitled in international law to la own interests to any extreme, even by means of armed force. We must that the day ol wholly independent small nations is over, and that the v alternatives before us are either to create a Lederal Europe in which national iom) will be reconciled with common responsibility and acceptance of a mil rule, >'i n» allow the continent to be cut up into ''spheres of influence" m m,! b) the major Powers, which will promptly proceed to reorganise their m preparation for the next g real war. tin); lite latter alternative, we decide to make our war aim the insiitu- ■ ' l i ili t i 1 u rope, wc mu.t realise clearly what thu objective requires of ne thinfi certain it is thai a Federal Europe cannot be built Inundation1..... which ihc attempt was made m build .i League of \(,4 Documents Nations after ihc Inst war. Countries which arc to live permanently .it peace must accept a common rule t>i conduct as limiting their national rights. They must Ik' ready to renounce not only the resort iu war in furtherance of their aims, but also the means of resorting to it. Moreover, they must be prepared to co-operate positively, especially in their economic affair*, and to use every endeavour to create in their people's minds a feeling of loyalty to the Federation ol which (hev are members, even when this seem* io conflict with the stimulation of a more narrowly patriotic sentiment towards their own country as distinct from the rest. We cannot expect the Germans to pay any attention to us when our statesmen proclaim that we are making war upon "Hiilerism" and not upon tin; German people, unless we pledge ourselves io war objectives which they can accept as theirs as much as ours. We and they will have to live together in the new Europe thai will come inio being alter the war; and we should know by now that even che most complete military victory cannot for long keep in subjection a people as numerous and assertive as that or Germany. The future well-being and satisfaction of the Germans are as much m our interest as our own well-being and satisfaction. Accordingly, our war aim cannot be merely victor)', or merely the reduction of Germany to military impotence- We and the Germans and all the other peoples oi Europe must work together with a good heart in building the new European system, or tt cannot be built ai all, except in such a shape as will lead to yet more wars. It is therefore necessary, in considering ihc future, to be mindful of the past, m order both to avoid a repetition of old crimes, and to search in these lor indications ol where we went wrong in making ihc Versailles settlement, and in administering it when it had been made. If now. oni the ground that wc arc at war, we endeavour to bury our pas; mistakes under tne heaps of the slain, we shall be making the worst possible preparation tor the tasks ahead. The wiser course is to admit openly what we have done amiss, and to by plans no Jess openly lor a settlement which shall be free of the faults that have led io the present disaster. We may blame Hitler as the author ol the war; but we shall be wise to ask ourselves also what it was thai raised Hitler to a position or power which enables him to lay Europe waste. Our war aims must be not merely to defeat HJtlerisin, but m create a world in which Hiilerism will be impossible and unknown. Wc cannot hope to achieve this unless we are aware and repentant of the follies which have been committed in our name ('-..) Even a Federation based on Europe must include the colonial territories of the Great Powers, whether recently or anciently acquired. There are only two ways t>f dealing with colonics that are consistent with the conditions of a lasting settlement among the great powers. One way is to give them sell-government, in a sense as full and complete as that in which it is enjoyed by Canada, or Mire, •>• South Attica, or Australia, or New Zealand. That, plainly- is the only way open to us of dealing with India, or with any oilier colony or mandated territory thai is capable oi looking after its own affairs. Hut admittedly we cannol solve the colonial problem simply by turning all the colonies into virtually independent .States: lor many ol them are not capable of standing alone, nor is ii an) moo 11. Other Coniribuliont 1939-41 .'.■-, hopeful a solution of the world's problems to balkaflise Africa than to balkanise Europe. Accordingly, for many colonies wc must adopt the alternative way of action - the international way. (. . .) The only possible answer to the demands of ihc "Have-nots" lor colonial empires is that we are prepared to throw our conquests together into a common pool, and io do our best to work out an international solution of the entire African problem. The basis of this solution can be only that no European power shall have any colonics in Africa, but that all parts ol the continent thai are not lullv sell-governing shall be put under the administration of an international body (or of more than one) empowered to exercise all the authority of a Government. By this I mean that the administrators of these internationalised territories must have lull power to levy taxes and provide services, to maintain their own armed police and their own machinery of justice and administration, tn.l to control the economic and social development of the territories under their . ontrol under an international deed of trust which will instruct them (a) to act as trustees for the inhabitants, (b) to grant no discriminative privileges, political or iconomic, to any of the States entering into the agreement, or indeed to any Others, and (c) to foster as speedily as possible local, regional and continental institutions of African self-government in such a way as to lead towards the removal ol tutelage without the effect of splitting up the continent into a number • •I independent sovereign Slates. In effect, in Africa as well as in Europe- wc have i-. work towards a federal solution on a democratic basis, even if the advance has I be made more gradually and requires a period oi international tutelage. I his would mean that Africa, divided pcrhnps into three or four suitable rc-BOnti would he governed by an international civil service recruited personally • M.I not on the nomination ol the various European Governments. It would be I rncd under a deed ol trust; and the administrators would be answerable to a i ol Mandates Commission appointed by the new Federal European Author- I w as, m Africa, it is essential to plan and to administer common services over min h wider than those ol the separate colonial possessions of the various ■ 'in I mope Federation must rest on a basis of common services and irni.....lal administration. Two very simple examples will help to illustrate U I have m mind. At present, each independent State has its own patent law, item is valid only when it has been registered in each separate country, a >' h State has its own laws regulating the existence and working of joint ■ i il'.inies, partnerships, Trade Unions, Cooperative Societies, and every Hs enterprise or private association. Federal Europe, on the con- .i i ommon patent law and a common commercial code, which i in) registered patem <>r enterprise free over the entire territory of the I i,i. of course, will noi prevent an) State forming part of the Union ľ -n\ paruculai service under public ownership or under any special .....u,i! What r- needed is noi uniformity, but a unified pattern ol law ■ * In, h * .»n be administered on international principles in the courts lui m Si lies and ol the Union as a whole. 166 Document Thi> common basis ol law is indispensable ii iJic States which form ihc Union are co he able to grow together naturally by transacting the ordinary business ol lite in a common way. It is not, J think, practicable to propose that over the entire territory ol the Union all customs barriers shall be thrown down at once; for import duties are indispensable to some States as sources oi revenue, and the sudden destruction or all lorms of protective duty would loo seriously dislocate the economic systems of some others. The constituent States should, however, mutually agree to a progressive lowering of lariff barriers, to a common method ol levying customs duties, and. with one important reservation, to a Mom Favoured Nation Clause which would exclude all discrimination against the goods of any country belonging to the Union/ The suggested reservation is that this equality of treatment should not prevent contiguous States, such as the .Scandinavian, the Danubian, or the Balkan croups, from entering into arrangements of their own either for complete Customs Unions- with full freedom of trade between members of the group, or for mutual tariff reductions leading in the direction of commercial union. Without this reservation, ihc laying dwii of rules against tarill discrimination might hinder, instead of helping forward, the freedom ol international trade; for neighbouring countries would he prevented from relaxing their restrictions - as they have been in recent years - it every concession which they grained one to another had to be made immediately applicable over the whole area of the Union. In the nineteenth century, statesmen worshipped the fiction - for nol even then was it really a tact - that the economic relations between Slates had nothing to do with their political relations. In these days of gigantic national combines claiming ehe support ol the State power, and ol totalitarian war which involves the entire economic resources o: each belligerent, the fiction that diplomacy can be divorced from economics has to be entirely given up. Economic power largelv determines military strength; and it is an essential part of modern warfare to weaken the economic potential of the enemy. This, which applies to waging war and to preparing for it, applies with equal force to the arts of building peace. I; the peoples of fůirope are to achieve economic and social welfare, the economic barriers between them must he torn down, and their Governments must set to work, collaboratively, to develop their common economic heritage. Moreover, as long a> the economic forces of Society are left to he controlled by contending economic groups, economic conflict wifl engender political conflict, and each State will set out to grab as much as it can or the economic means both to riches and to military Strength. These are the reasons why, in building a better substi tule lor the abortive League of Nations, we must build upon foundations of economic, and not merely supcrstru crural, union. 11. Other Contribuiions 1939 41 167 62. Clement Atttcc: 'Europe Must Federate or Perish' November 1939 i Kccrpl from C. R. Alllee, Labour's Peate Aims, London (Peace Hook Co.) January 1940, (16 pp.), p- 12; reprinted in C. R. Anlee. Arthur Greenwood and others, labour's Urns in War and Peace, London (Lincolns-Pragcr) VHO. i kment Richard Aalet (I8S3-Í967; Lord Aitlce, 19)51 became leader of lbe tebou* ftirt) i" I9JS. In May 194C he was to join Churchill's coalition government and serve in the U .if i ahmet throughout the reft of she Second World War. He was Prime Minister from \Hi to /'<*/ During the period of the phoney war, as Leader of the Opposition in the Howe .,/ mom, he eatie general support to Chamberlain « government in the prosecution of the btle exercising the right to criticise and make suggestions, ht a speech at Caxton li.it! ■ \ ■ ember 1939, to* meeting of Labour Members of Parliament and Parliamentary i úndulal v., be set out six principles which should forni we basis for a peace settlement, 0>ic fi'iury l< i the fifth} dealt with the need for an international author;!}, and included •i \tnktng phrase "Europe must federate or perish", which WAS eagerly taken up and ■ i by advocates of federalism at the tone it ihouid he noted, however, that it was not fanned or developed in the text ofAtilee's speech, and tt did not prove to be a permanent "umii'iriii by the Labour Party to the principle of federalism. ■ •■•■■■' extract puis Anlce's phrase in its Context by setting out all hit sixprinct- Wl.il then should be the principles of a Peace Settlement? I In in :\ principle is that there should be no dictated peace- We have no desire humiliate, m crush or to divide the German nation. There must be restitution in the victims or aggression, but all ideas ol revenge and punishment must ■ «., luded II peace is to be lasting it must result from the agreement of all, not m id. dictation ol a few nations. The failure of the treaties at the «id of the last • I'i mi; abiding peace was largely due to the neglect of this principle. But it ■ build a new world iis foundations must be laid not only by the large it bj the small and less powerful. It is the function of law to prevent using Ins strength at the expense ol the weak. The smaller nations, the) arc noi aggressive, bring to the councils of the nation a most i principle necessarily follows. Ii is the recognition ol the right ol all n ■■: mull, ol wliatcvei colour or creed, to have the right to live and ■Ii. ii own characteristic civiliwtion, provided thai they do not therein Ijdits ■»! others, The German, relinquishing his conception ol the f war aims iuued I du Nati aal Executive of the Labour Party i m Icired "" tin* need to create > uc« international wganisaiiim, .. ' Brim itmmo n wealth, Trance and their allies; ,.i include Aitlw't renurluhlc teilten« Sec ľht .'.•>;■, 9 l:ebn ". 168 Documents primacy of the German race, most recognise that the Pole .ind the Czech and the jew have as (»itch right as he, no more and no less, to a place in the world and to a share in the bouníy of nature, Equally, the Briton must recognise thai the saitfc true of the African or any other inhabitant of the British Empire. The German must concede to the Austrian the right t» decide his own future. The Briton roust equally concede the .same right ro the Indian. Thirdly, there must be a complete abandonment o) aggression and of the um- ol armed force as an instrument of policy. Warmuit be outlawed and the rule of law-accepted- Where disputes cannot he amicably settled by negotiation, they must be submitted to the decision ol disinterested arbitrators and their decision ac-cepied. Fourthly, there must be recognition of the rights of national, racial and religious minorities. While as far as possible every Stale should be left free to manage its internal affairs, there is a common interest in the prevention of oppression, and in the recognition of the rights of individuals. It may well be that later the principle of the recognition of the rights nf die individual mt^lii be given siiH wider extension, and be firmly established as part ol die law of nations. Flen* it is sufficient fo lay down as a principle thai where there are racial minorities in any Mate, there must be some effective authority by an international body ovei the sovereign rights ol the individual State. Fifthly, tliete must be acceptance ol the principle that international anarchy is incompatible with peace, and that in the common interest there must be recognition ol an international authority superior to the individual Stares and endowed not only Willi rights over tnem, but with power ro make them cileciive, opcratim; not only hi the political, bin in the economic sphere. Europe must federate or perish. Sixthly, there' must be abandonment ol Imperialism and acceptance of the principle that in the government ol colonies and dependencies where sclf-go\ eminent cannot yet lie conceded, the interests ol ihc natives must be paramount, and that there must be equal access lor all nations to markets and raw materials This cm best be achieved by an extended and strengthened mandate system undei international authority. We hold that die redistribution of colonial territories between rival imperialisms is no solution, lor we tlo not admit that any nation has the right to hold others in subjection. 63. Norman AngeJI; The Unification of the West December W Excerpt from par W/uu Do W'e Figbtf, London (Hamish Hamilton) December I9J9, (27$ pp.), pp. 264-270. ■•■ Sir Norman Angell (1872-1967} was a prolific political writer, I lis moH fatiioh The Gee« Illusion (1909), m whirl} lieargueri thai .-. at could bring uorcm.....»'• bei ílu' belligerents ana 'bal <■• operation -.,, replacing forte <" the candnci n) internát II. Oihcf Coiiiribuiions 19.19-41 )(.•> affairs.1 Despite ibe collapse of the latter part of bis argument in 1914. Angelt remained an influential figure. He mas a Labour Member of Parliament from 1929 to I9M, and was knighted in Í93I. Tbe mam argument of Angcll's book For What Do VC'e Fight? was that the principle at slake in tbe war wat the preservation of "the rights of man". He wanted ibe British government to make use of the stalemate of the phoney war period (which he thought would lasta long lime) to prepare a general statement of war aims which would appeal both to neutral countries and to the enemy. In particular, he urged that Britain should declare her iiipport for "the unification of the Well" ami "the federal idea". The following extracts, uiken from the concluding chapter of the book, deal with the idea of using Britain, the Commonwealth and I ranee at tbe basis for a federal union; with the need for common policies in foreign affairs, defence and economics; and with the position of Germany. •- Implicit in much that has been written in the foregoing pages is the fact that One of our major difficulties will be to persuade the enemy people and the neutrals that this time we mean what we say when we speak of fighting tor principles of security and equality of right as important to the world as a whole as to ourselves. There is one means by which wc can prove that we mean business; by begin-nifig to put our vaguclv outlined plans into execution now. There are two immediate steps which mure than anything else whatsoever would show whether and to what degree we ourselves are prepared for the unification of the West, are ready for the Federal idea; which would tend to convince the world - neutral and enemy peoples alike - of the reality of our professions about a new international system. And that is to begin, now, to build Up .i real federal unity with France; to make of the French and British Empires a Unit, »t»i merely for war purposes, but as the beginning of the permanent reconstruction ol Europe and the world along new lines. Concurrently a persistent Irivc should be made towards a real Federal Union of the Commonwealth. We lnMilil begin i<> accustom ourselves anil the world to think of France and Britain, i. two countries of about Forty million people each (confronted by a greater many twice the sizeol either), but as a single country of eighty millions, the t of a union ol an additional five hundred millions, girdling the world. beginning >>: some kind of Franco-British federalism might be found in l i inco British Supreme Council already linked with Franco-British Boards ping, Purchase of Supplies, Exchange Problems. There might well be lulled, by private effort at first, a Franco-British Interparliamentary Connie, first ol all between like-minded parties ol both parliaments, going on to .....11 .it representatives of all British and all French parties. i >i an) plan lor "Federalizing defence*1 should be its operation in lune ,i\ well as in war. (. . .) . nth 11 words, it there is to he co-operation m war, there must be a common Ulutton London, (Hcinemann) first cd. 1909; several later i% . ( iheobuuar} ■•! Angelt, The Times, 9 October 1967, reprinted in Frank C .''•■■■ " I ondon, (Newspaper Archive i ■ 1975 75